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Chrysler Pacifica's Fam Cam is a great feature that needs to be on more cars

The CDC and various other official entities encourage or demand parents to place their children in a rear-facing child seat from birth until the ages of 2 to 4. That obviously means a driver or front passenger cannot see them, necessitating a mirror that you can see from the car's rearview mirror. As someone who constantly moved his son's rear-facing child seat between different cars every week, I can firmly recommend a mirror like this with a swivel base, as it is so much easier than others to mount and adjust.  But you know what's better than a mirror? The Chrysler Pacifica's "Fam Cam." In between the second and third rows, in the middle of the van, is a little glossy black disk in the ceiling that contains cameras that display images of second and third rows. There are daylight color and night time infrared camera views as well (although the daylight one makes certain darker colors look lilac purple). You can also enlarge one of the outboard second-row seats for a better view. Any of these above options allows you to see your children many times better than is possible with a mirror, especially at night. Just look at the difference below. Basically, you can't see your kid at all with the rearview mirror at night. Turning on the overhead map light helps, but my son wasn't too keen on having an interrogation lamp in his face, and it's certainly not ideal for sleeping, either. A given car's backseat position can also mean that the forward-facing child mirror is below the rearview mirror's line of sight, meaning you have to choose between seeing your kid or seeing what's going on behind your vehicle. Again, advantage Fam Cam. Here's another benefit. It's usually very difficult, if impossible, to mount both a forward-facing mirror and a tablet holder at the same time. I usually got around this by attaching the mirror to the middle seating position's head restraint, but that's obviously not an option in a vehicle with captain's chairs. Now, while I was literally able to mount both in the Pacifica for the purposes of illustrating my point, it was not easy and both mirror and tablet holder fit poorly. Using Fam Cam is obviously a better option. (Also a shout-out for Chrysler's positioning of the third-row USB port, which made it super-easy to keep the Galaxy charged).  Now, to be fair, the Kia Carnival and Honda Odyssey offer a similar rear seat spy camera feature, and we like those, too.

The minivan, reinvented | 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid First Drive

In the 1980s, minivans succeeded station wagons as the vehicle of choice to move families. The Chrysler Town & Country, Dodge Caravan, and Plymouth Voyager broke that ground, and Chrysler has owned the segment for most of its existence. Though still popular with practical types, minivans have been ceding ground to crossovers for a while, and after 30 years, minivan evolution has slowed, with only the occasional noteworthy feature like a built-in vacuum making headlines. The 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid is the next big idea in the segment. In fact, we think its plug-in hybrid powertrain is the biggest minivan idea since the original. Yes, we're excited about a hybrid people mover. For 2017, Chrysler has reworked, refocused, and renamed its minivan effort, ditching the Town & Country moniker in lieu of the Pacifica nameplate. The odd recycled name aside, it's not only far superior to Chrysler's outgoing minivan, but, with most of the competition several years old, the new Pacifica is easily the current class leader. But while the minivan's practicality is undeniable, they're not always the most efficient. It's a wonder, then, that no competitor has packaged a hybrid system into a minivan before – especially Toyota, given its dominance in hybrid everything else. Toyota does offer a hybrid minivan in its home market, but the Sienna's only calling card is that it's now the sole American van to offer all-wheel drive, something Chrysler gave up when it started hiding the seats in the floor years ago. Owing in part to its newness, the non-hybrid Pacifica was already one of the most fuel-efficient minivans on the market, with ratings of 28 miles per gallon highway, 18 city, and 22 combined. Add in the hybrid equipment, with its 16-kWh battery pack providing 30 miles of electric-only range, and the new Pacifica Hybrid achieves an astounding 84 MPGe, trouncing everything else in the segment (because, again, it's the only hybrid van). When working as a hybrid and not in EV mode, the Pacifica Hybrid nets a combined rating of 32 mpg. On a full tank and a full charge, it has a range of 566 miles. The hybridized version weighs 650 pounds more than a standard Pacifica. That's after some of the added weight from batteries and motors has been offset by a hood, sliding doors, and liftgate made from aluminum instead of steel. The suspension has been adjusted well enough that you don't really notice the added mass driving down the road.

Fiat Chrysler to open $30M autonomous driving test facility in Michigan

Fiat Chrysler said Wednesday it's invested more than $30 million in a new facility to develop and test autonomous vehicle and advanced safety technologies at its Chelsea Proving Grounds in southeast Michigan. The facility is the first of its kind for the automaker, which has mostly relied on partnerships with the likes of Uber and Google subsidiary Waymo to develop the hardware and software used in self-driving vehicles and avoided making large investments itself under former CEO Sergio Marchionne. The company this spring announced plans to deliver as many as 62,000 additional Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to Waymo and make Waymo's tech available in customer vehicles via a licensing deal. The new facility features a dedicated highway-speed track for testing self-driving cars with obstacles, tunnels and other features, a 35-acre safety feature testing area and a high-tech, 6,500-square-foot command center equipped with computers that can track GPS coordinates and test vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. It will allow FCA to test for different levels of automated driving, automatic electronic braking and automated parking simulations, and test protocols from third parties such as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, U.S. New Car Assessment Program and European New Car Assessment Program. Testing starts later this month. "The all-new facility at Chelsea Proving Grounds will help support and enable the successful rollout of the company's five-year plan laid out earlier this year," Mike Manley, FCA's new CEO and chief operating officer for the NAFTA region, said in a statement. "Our ability to test for autonomous and advanced safety technologies enables FCA to offer our customers the features they want across our brand portfolio." The Chelsea Proving Grounds, near Ann Arbor, opened in 1954 and now cover about 4,000 acres. About 900 people work there, the company says. Related Video: Image Credit: Getty Chrysler Fiat Technology Emerging Technologies Autonomous Vehicles Uber Waymo testing